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Monday January 22 7:44 PM ET
Lawyer: Charges Against Pardoned Marc Rich Were 'Overblown'
By Alden Bentley
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Criminal charges against Marc Rich, the fugitive billionaire commodities trader pardoned by former President Clinton (news - web sites), were overblown and the result of overzealous prosecution, a lawyer for Rich said on Monday.
Rich, a U.S. citizen, fled to Switzerland after being indicted in 1983 on more than 50 counts of wire fraud, racketeering, income tax evasion and trading oil with Iran during a U.S. trade embargo.
The reclusive Rich, who transplanted his global commodities trading from New York to Zug, Switzerland, in 1985, has so far not commented publicly on the pardon from Clinton.
But Robert Fink, one of the New York attorneys representing Rich since the early 1980s, said that the original charges were sensationalized, especially those filed under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) statute.
``The part of the case involving RICO wouldn't be brought today because the Justice Department (news - web sites) in its own manual concluded that you shouldn't proceed using RICO in a tax case,'' he said. ''The use of RICO in this case was unprecedented and was very overblown.''
Clinton raised eyebrows with his surprise move to wipe the slate clean for Belgian-born Rich, one of the world's richest men and among 140 people granted clemency in one of the last acts of Clinton's presidency on Saturday.
A legal source in New York on Monday who declined to be identified said both the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office and the Justice Department were blindsided by the move, unaware a Rich pardon was even being considered.
The office of U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White said she was not prepared to go beyond her initial statement on Saturday.
Responding to the slew of last-minute presidential pardons, White had said: ``The facts of several of these cases in particular raise significant law enforcement concerns,'' adding, ''The seriousness of the crimes is diminished and the fact and the appearance of even-handed justice is compromised.''
New York City Mayor Rudolph Guiliani, one of several prosecutors who had worked on the Rich case, blasted the decision.
``I'm shocked the president of the United States would pardon him,'' he told reporters on Sunday. ``After all, he's never paid a price. He got on an airplane, took all his records and ran off to Zug...where he's remained a fugitive since.''
Giuliani asserted that Rich had made many attempts to get the U.S. charges reduced through the use of influence.
From his new home in Chappaqua, New York, Clinton on Sunday defended his pardon of Rich, who's former wife Denise raised more than $500,000 for the Democratic party in the last two years.
``I spent a lot of personal time...because it's an unusual case, but (Rich's attorney Jack) Quinn made a strong case and I was convinced he was right on the merits,'' said Clinton, without elaborating.
Quinn, a lawyer in Washington, DC, served as White House counsel under Clinton until 1997, and was a former chief of staff for then Vice President Al Gore (news - web sites). He was unavailable for comment on Monday but directed inquiries on Rich to Fink.
Fink said he would not comment on whether Rich would now return to the U.S. from Switzerland, which refused to extradite him back to the United States.
But Fink claimed charges that Rich, along with his partner Pincus Green, evaded more than $48 million in income taxes through sham transactions and a foreign corporation were essentially trumped-up. Green was also pardoned by Clinton.
Rich's companies later settled the tax evasion dispute, which was the largest ever brought by the U.S. government, for more than $150 million but he was still wanted on other charges.
``It really was a regulatory case. It came out of old regulations that President Reagan dismissed the day he came into office,'' Fink said. ``Those regulations were confusing and difficult to enforce and no one other than Rich and Green were prosecuted criminally under them.''
Of the charge that Rich had traded with Iran in the late 1970s, when such business was outlawed during the Iran hostage crisis, Fink said the company involved in the purchase of oil from Iran was Rich's Swiss company, Marc Rich and Co. Holding AG (MRAG), which he said was specifically exempt from such regulations.
``He personally didn't have anything to do with Iran, as best I know it,'' Fink said. ``In fact, the indictment doesn't say he had anything to do with Iran, just that he had something to do with the oil after MRAG bought it.''
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